Since 2016, built with investigators
Noctua began in 2016, after a presentation about software for forensic investigators at a Dutch regulator. From the outset it has been built together with the investigators and analysts at the organisations that became its first customers.
Municipalities and water authorities
A named contact for every customer
Fixed rules, no learning model
What is inside comes from practice
That has not changed. A policy rule that works out differently than intended, a source that needs to be added, a step in the investigation that does not run in practice the way it does on paper: it is details like these that decide what we build.
As a result, the platform does not impose a single way of working. What it becomes for an organisation depends on what that organisation is permitted to query and what it has determined for itself.
Why it is built this way
Investigation software can go one of two ways. It can take work off your hands by drawing conclusions itself, or it can support the work and leave the conclusion to the investigator.
We chose the second, because the person who takes the decision cannot justify an outcome the software produced. Anyone who has to account for a decision must be able to explain how they arrived at their facts. That is only possible if they took those steps themselves, and if there is a record of what those steps were.
The rest follows from that. Fixed rules instead of a learning model, and an audit log that cannot be switched off. The platform builds the report together with the investigator: the flags and the standing sections are already in it, and the investigator draws the conclusions about them.
Our customers
Our customers are predominantly municipalities and water authorities, alongside organisations that screen their suppliers and clients. We do not name most of them. That is their choice and we respect it.
We do say which kinds of sources are in the platform, but not the providers or the connections behind them. What is available to an organisation depends on what it is permitted to consult, and we discuss that before we configure the platform.
Every customer has a named contact, who knows the environment and was there when it was set up.
The logo
The logo shows a stylised owl. An owl sees what happens in the dark and hears what others miss, without drawing attention to itself. That is the role the platform plays: it observes what is there, precisely and without commotion, so that whoever is looking can judge what it means.
Questions about the platform or a procurement process
If a public tender or a DPIA is under way, we will go through those points with you. The documentation is ready.